industrial holocaust annually which so far transcends the fatalities in other countries as to stagger the imagination. But all this is not sufficient to cause our unalterable faith in the value of our plan to waver for a moment. In fact, we have forgotten all about the pitiful compromise in our action and hail the policy of Horace Mann as the "greatest educational discovery of the century." We move so rapidly in the van of progress that we are a little ashamed of France because it took her so long to adopt our policy of secularization, and we pity Germany because, in spite of her evident progress in other matters, she is still so far under the dominance of superstitution that she insists on religion being taught in her schools. That patriotism wanes, that corruption and graft run riot in our municipal politics, that intellectual and æsthetic standards are being steadily lowered among the masses of our people, that crime is multiplying beyond measure, none of these things, nor all of them together, are sufficient to make us pause and reconsider the wisdom of our policy. We are deeply sorry, in fact, for our benighted English cousins, for as Professor Dewey tells us, "Nothing, I think, struck the American who followed the debates on the last English educational bill with more emphasis than the fact that even the more radical upon the Liberal side disclaimed, almost with horror, any intention of bringing about the state of things which we, upon this side, precisely take for granted as normal-all of us except Lutherans and Roman Catholics."

We loudly proclaim our privilege of free speech and independent thinking; nevertheless, there are certain

THE MELTING
POT OF THE
NATIONS

things which we, as American citizens, must hold as too sacred for discussion, and among these may be numbered the doctrines that the permanence of our democratic institutions demands the edu

cation of all our people, and that this education should concern itself chiefly with the eradication of the national

A GROWING

and religious characteristics of the people who come to our shores from other lands. Our chests swell with pride as we declare that the public school is the alembic through which all the best qualities of the nations of the world are carried over into the formation of the American citizen. In spite of our assurance, DISCONTENT however, there are not wanting symptoms of approaching change. For the past few years a healthy discontent with ourselves and with our educational system is beginning to develop in all parts of the country. Many of the Protestant denominations are coming to realize their mistake in consenting to the banishing of religion from the schools, and are looking about to find some means of retrieving their losses. Serious men of all

A NEW FORM
OF AN OLD
FALLACY

shades of religious belief, as well as those who acknowledge no religious affiliations, are demanding that more thorough instruction in morals be given in the schools. It is true that we are still very largely under the domination of the old delusion that knowledge and virtue are synonymous, and so we are attempting to stem the swelling tide of immorality in our school population by giving thorough instruction in sex hygiene to our babies. We have grown profoundly discontented with the output of our schools when the children are judged from the standpoint of efficiency, either as private individuals or as public servants, and a reconstruction of the whole system which will permit the introduction of vocational training in the grammar grades is being demanded.

This general unrest and dissatisfaction with ourselves and our achievements in the field of education is a hopeful sign. It is true that we might have more reason to expect immediate reSCIENTIFIC TEMPER sults if the scientific temper controlled our experimenting, but the

ABSENCE OF THE

opposite seems to be the case. In educational matters we

do not seem to have outgrown the child stage, where assertion passes over into conviction without warrant of analysis or proof, where a single idea dominates the mind to the exclusion of all modifying principles, where consequences are not calculated in advance, and where results of actual achievements are neither measured nor set down for the guidance of others. The picture of ourselves to be seen in the mirror which Dr. Luther Gulick holds up to us is not flattering. In a recent address before the Congress of the American School Hygiene Association he says: "What is the best age for a child to enter school? This is a question that could be definitely answered if we could secure adequate data on the subject. Galton and Karl Pearson have given us the tools-life itself gives us

THINGS WE
SHOULD KNOW

the material-of obtaining such data. We need only the opportunity. I venture the assertion that almost every person in this room has convictions upon the subject, and yet that these convictions are based upon a few personal experiences in each case.

My point is this: that neither school men nor physicians nor parents are competent of judging such questions as this ex-cathedra. Theories and convictions can never solve such problems; their only solution lies in a searching analysis of existing conditions; in measuring results in a sufficient number of cases to arrive at definite conclusions. Such investigations should be conducted in accordance with modern scientific methods."

We entirely agree with Dr. Gulick. We are confronted in our public schools and in our Catholic schools with many weighty problems which are pressing for solution. They cannot be solved offhand by the ex-cathedra pronouncements of sciolists, nor can they be brushed aside under the pretext that they have all been solved in the past, for the problems to which we refer are the direct outgrowth of the profound social and economic changes

*Journal of Education, May 11, 1911, p. 511.

that are taking place in our own generation. Again, the scientific spirit has been slow in its invasion of the field of education and satisfactory data for the science of education are still very meagre. Dr. Gulick is hardly exaggerating the case when he says "It is concerning the most fundamental questions, moreover, that we are still at sea. We do not know the number of hours a day at which the child can make the most progress at each age. There is no one trying to find out, so far as I know. We do not know how many subjects a child can study to advantage at each age. We do not even know the most effective and economic size of a class at various ages. It might be, for example, that in a class of seventy children each child would get so little instruction that a number of them would be held back; and this would cost the school system more than if there had been only fifty in the class. We do not know the number of months in the year that children should attend school; yet we compel all children to go to school upon the assumption that we do know." To this the Doctor adds a long list of the things which we do not know in the field of education, and which we should know if we used ordinary prudence and were guided by the scientific spirit. He points out the fact that we spend over $500,000,000 a year on public education and fail to make any provision to deal with the scientific side of the problems presented. "We see the significance of examining our coal to be sure we are getting the best and the cheapest; we do not see the significance of examining the output of our school system to be sure that we are getting the best results from our expenditure."

And yet from the Doctor's own testimony the present situation is not without hope, since there is evidently a

A HOPEFUL
SIGN

growing consciousness that something is wrong and that it should be set right. “Am I overstating the facts," he asks, "when I say that there is scarcely a city in America. that is satisfied with its public schools? Here in New

York City an investigation has been proposed; and those who follow educational matters know that in city after city severe criticisms of the school system are constantly coming up. Even school men themselves disagree when they come together to discuss these questions; you cannot get a group of education people together without having a controversy upon some one of these problems. As individuals, in fact, we cannot settle these matters to our own satisfaction. They can only be settled by ascertaining results by measurements of what we are doing."

CHANGE OF
ATTITUDE

There is scarcely anything in the field of education which is more significant of the unrest of the present than the change of attitude which is beginning A SIGNIFICANT to manifest itself on the question of coeducation. A short time ago it would have been difficult to find any one amongst us brave enough to challenge the wisdom. of pursuing the policy of coeducation in all our schools. Our state supported schools are for all the people, and hence their doors should be open alike to boys and girls. It was taken for granted by many that this necessarily implied coeducation. Commissioner Harris tried the experiment of coeducation in the high schools under his jurisdiction in St. Louis when the movement began and found to his surprise that the difficulties anticipated did not appear.From that time to the end of his career he threw all the weight of his great influence into the scales in favor of coeducation. Our educators, in a full-throated chorus, proclaimed to the world the great results that we were achieving through this policy: economy, close grading, the emancipation of woman, the removal of immorality, etc. That the nations of Europe laughed at us seemed to have no other effect than to confirm us in the belief that we were ahead of our time. During the past few years, however, signs of discontent with the policy of coeducation have begun to appear in widely scattered parts of the field of education.